Chapter 1: Princesses out of Daughters
Summary: Papa Archeron reflects on the strangeness of his three little girls.
"Last year I abstained this year I devour..." Amy Dunne
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The eldest Archeron sister looked at the doorway, her eyes already filled with enough frankness to unsettle her father. At twelve, she was already gifted in disturbing the peace, the quiet somber home turning to battle cries of woeful wills and ire... except for these nights when she'd become as gracious as her mother.
She didn't smile or wave at him as he neared. Merely turned back to the present company, a couple that nodded curtly as one would do to the owner of the house they were dining in. Nesta didn't seem to care, dismissing him as if he were no more than some footman bringing her a glass of champagne, she was too young to drink.
She smiled easily at the pair; her face lighting up like the moon. His daughter dressed like it too, wearing a gown of silver, pearls woven around her neck. A present from his last trip to the continent. She didn't bother looking at him as he rested his hand on her arm, the only form of contact she'd allow. But Nesta, catching the eye of a passing servant, moved to take a glass. Water he'd assumed, because he would not let her have wine. An argument he was firm to uphold.
She didn't take a sip, though he understood why, frowned at his daughter who'd successfully shrugged him off. He was not ashamed to admit it disturbed him. The lack of affection, the keen stares even as she smiled once more, the twist of her lips foreign and unnatural—the ease at which she could be so unbothered. She was an adult in a child's body, he remarked. A child who didn't care for such childish antics. Any form of love beneath her, perhaps.
She'd not been made like her other sisters and try as he might to have made a home that was filled with all sorts of dreams and... fanciful things a child could want; porcelain dolls, intricate games, dresses woven in rubies and gold, dangling ornaments for her hair, his daughter had not cared for such things. Nesta did not care for anything but staring at doorways, out windows, at clocks—as if time would stand still if she'd watched them for long enough.
Even now, he could feel her eyes shift to the arch of the entryway, to the wooden doors enlaced in stained glass.
He'd asked her once, why she stared at the clock as if it might tell her future or at the doors when no guests were scheduled to visit, but she'd merely replied that she was waiting.
"Waiting for what?" He'd implored.
She huffed, her chin raised as her mother had taught her, high enough that she might see over the tallest of them all. Over mountains and the egos of small-minded men. "You would not understand."
He'd left her alone after that, muttering to himself that he ought to ask her mother when the proper time to move her out to the continent was, broaden her mind beyond this house and these people.
But here she was again, her lips raised into something serpentine, looking to the door. Always watching as if something might come through.
Nesta had done well enough with his friends. None of them commenting on the strangeness of his eldest when she'd been born so beautiful. There was an easy grace about her, trailing her as she walked, as she breathed. Her mother had said she walked like a queen. He thought she acted like she was bored. The act of conversing little more than watching paint dry.
Perhaps, he'd take her on one of his trips. Introduce her to the fascinating world of trade, instead of having her flittering about. She was tough, he knew. On many occasions, he'd watch her argue with men twice her size—how women were better writers because they understood the true world, and men only thought they were better writers because no one had ever told them otherwise. He apologized of course, for his daughter's rampant tongue, but his friends never seemed to mind, a special sort of gleam in their eyes, as if they too saw what she might become with a little guidance—with a helping hand.
He did not enjoy watching them look at his daughter as if they meant to cut her open—discover a golden heart and diamond encrusted lungs. Worth something more if they stuck around for long enough, his daughter only appreciating in value. But Nesta never shied away, and she did not do so now, her mother looking approvingly from the other side of the room. In fact, the man, a friend of his if he'd like to call him that who owned land in the south resulting in a lucrative lumber yard, began shuffling his feet. Nesta noticed of course, doing her best to hide her smirk, politely nodding her head as he told her she would grow into one beautiful lady.
She was only twelve, he wanted to remind him. But his wife had warned against ruining his daughter's prospects no matter how far in the future they might be. The couple had a son. He would inherit his parent's wealth if not their luck in business, and if his parents were in fact good in business, their son would also win an Archeron, too.
"She looks too grown," he'd admitted the night before. His wife unpinning her hair, the drops of pearls set lightly on the vanity as if the mere act was a routine of seduction. His wife had not seduced him since his youngest had been born.
"Yes, and soon she'll be blooming. A beautiful lady sweeping some gentlemen away," She laughed pleased, the sound filled with enough gaiety he wondered if it did not sound maleficent. "My little queen married before even I."
The pride in her mother's voice had shook him. Plainly. Irrevocably. How could she pride herself on sanctioning the pursuit of his child, introducing her to wealthy people, going to balls that looked more like the auctions he'd witnessed in Nava. Was his daughter to be the next cow? A bell hanging from her neck.
As he watched his daughter flutter about, his wife coming to grasp her by the shoulder to lur her to another man, never women alone, he thought the continent might be a good idea indeed. Even if it might be hard to get her there, to keep her safe.
He was lucky at least that Elain had not yet been set out on the butcher block.
Elain, nearly eleven, had only just started being taught the proper ways of a lady. Her mother did not feel the need before or after Elain had started filling out her form. She had not been born… conventionally pretty. When she laid in his arms as a babe, she'd looked like a mangy thing. Her head a bit too large for the rest of her body. She'd not grown out of her awkward limbs until she was seven and by then his wife had deemed it a lost cause. If she turns out beautiful enough, she'd said, I might teach her a thing or two to secure her fortune, but I won't waste by breath when she looks like one of those science experiments gone wrong.
The idea that his daughter would be deemed a science experiment goaded at him. His sweet Elain. Quiet perhaps, withdrawn at the best of times, but kind. A bit sensitive, he'd admit but there was no mean-spirited bone in her body. He once joked that her heart had been made of glass. Don't fall or you might shatter, he'd laughed. Elain had cried. Nesta had comforted, patting her back as she gave him a look so harsh, he'd visibly shuttered. Yes... Elain was the sweet one, growing into her beauty every day. Maybe even to outshine his eldest in due time.
As he stepped away from that galivanting group, with their smoke and perfume, the room too bright and too loud, he half expected to hear Elain's cries coming from the above floors. His little girl having a penchant for night terrors.
But as the chatter became a distant thing behind him, he heard nothing. Not a peep.
He aimed to check on the two sleeping children, stepping towards the stairs, but he could feel a gaze on his back. Shivers ran down his spine and even though he knew it was stupid to fear his own daughter, he turned to face her, her eyes piercing his.
Her stare might as well have been an arrow shot straight through his heart.
She blinked at him slowly, no malice on her face, but no joy either. Devoid of any and all emotion. Such a pretty porcelain doll, he thought. One that might wake one day with a mind of its own and a terrible tiredness of being set up on a shelf and stared at all day long. He could almost hear the sound of her music box, the twinkling notes as the dancer spun on its golden hinge.
He had given it to her on her sixth birthday, after promising he would not miss it like her fifth. He'd been two weeks late, but the music box had made up for it, he found. For she'd played it nonstop. Again, and again. So many hours and days had passed with that sound lightly playing from her room, in the halls, before and after her lessons. Her mother had hated it, claiming headaches and thus a weakened disposition. She'd taken it away, taking out the small mechanism which left the box devoid of any music.
Nesta hadn't showed any emotion then either.
He waved a hand awkwardly at his child non-child, grimacing even as he tried to smile, but Nesta only turned away.
He sighed and supposed he could not win all battles.
He began walking up the stairs, the carpet dark against the wood. Luxuriant as his wife preferred. The creak in each step made him want to hire a contractor to see what might deaden the floors. He was surprised his wife had not complained about it.
The foyer was dark. Quiet in a way that might have meant his two youngest were sleeping or playing a very good game of hide and seek, which he caught on more than one occasion when it came to his youngest.
Indeed, a small figure stood in the middle of the hallway as he turned the corner. Her hair was messy and unbound, covering her face. When she saw him, she stopped. A preternatural sort of stillness arching through her small figure. He held his breath, but the little girl moved swiftly, running and alive with giggles.
"Feyre!" He yelled in a hush, clenching a hand to the wall as if he meant to steady himself. "You scared me half to death. What are you doing up?"
He knew the answer, of course. Feyre could never sleep. Always awake and wandering. Always a little lost in the woods of her mind. He'd called her Little Red, for the first few years of her life for as soon as she started walking, they could never seem to find her. He'd almost had a heart attack when she'd gone missing one day only to be found hours later, asleep in a cabinet. Her head sweetly resting on a pillow of bread.
"It's past your bedtime. I shouldn't have to remind you of that," he warned, his voice faintly disciplinary. It sounded odd even to him and Feyre only titled her head as if waiting for him to drop the act.
She crossed her arms in the way he knew meant she would fight him as she so often did. It seemed at least two of his girls did not see him as the authority.
"Nesta gets to stay up," she countered.
"Nesta is older than you," he sighed, having heard the argument many, many times.
"Only by three and a half years," She huffed, her brows furrowing.
"Almost four years."
"Then what about Elain? Elain's only one year younger and she has to go to bed."
That was always her argument…
And it was a good argument. One that he couldn't always refute, because in his mind Elain should have been with Nesta... or should he say, Nesta shouldn't have been there at all. But he couldn't very well explain the favoritism to his youngest, when he didn't wholly understand it himself.
"Elain doesn't like parties," he lied.
"What? That's not true!" Her voice rose, her feet moving to the room at the far right, "Elain you like parties, don't you?" She yelled.
"Oh no," he said, scooping her up. She was still small, smaller than most kids her age, and so skinny. He'd overheard some of the cooks talk about her size. If fae came to this part of town, they'd sooner take a starving servant than one of the Archeron sisters, especially that bouncing brat.
He had told his wife what the cook had said that day and she'd leaned back in her chair, the mistress of the manor, her lips curling in distaste. You let them say those things about your daughters? He could still hear her voice, the creaks of the floorboards as she abounded down the stairs. He'd never seen his wife in the kitchens, but the cook had cowered in fear.
She was dismissed without severance.
He shook away the thought, "Elain is sleeping."
"No, she's not. I was just in her room. She woke me up, screaming," she said derisively, huffing out in annoyance. "She had a nightmare again."
"What was it about?" He asked. For the life of him, he could never find out. Elain refused to tell him, but perhaps she'd confided in her younger sister. She had not confided in her older sister, because when he'd asked Nesta if she knew, she'd only remarked that Elain's dreams were nonsense.
"The same thing she always dreams about," She said, not letting out a lick more before pushing on the door of his sweet girl's room.
It was a princess's paradise.
He only sought out the best for his daughters, but Elain's he'd made sure to dress up in all manners of pinks and golds. The walls were painted with large flowers, the four-poster bed large enough for Elain to feel as if she were floating on a cloud. Trinkets hung from the ceiling. Golden birds that swept high above that cloud-like bed and disappeared into the large windows dusted in blush.
The moon shined from the window and he could see the outline of branches through the curtains. He wondered if that had not stirred these incessant dreams. Perhaps, the shadows scared her. Images of monsters drawn on the walls.
"My little dove, you had a nightmare again?" He asked, seating himself to the side of her, the bed dipping. Elain nodded, reaching for her blankets to pull up to her chin. "Do you want to tell me what it was about?"
Elain did not answer. But Feyre did.
"She's worried that the fae will come."
Elain smacked her hand on the bed.
"Be quiet," she hissed, the first derisive thing he'd ever heard from his sweet, glass-made girl and he wondered if perhaps she'd been spending too much time with Nesta.
But Feyre did not seem to find the act surprising, and she did not quiet, only leaned against the dresser, picking up a hand-painted unicorn figure he'd gotten Elain from one of his trips to Scythia. "She's worried that the fae are going to come in the middle of the night and take us."
Elain lowered her head, her mouth frowning into a pout. "Nesta said the good folk take human children and replace them with their own."
"The good folk? I thought they were called the fair folk." Feyre asked, tilting her head as if she couldn't fathom knowing the incorrect term. The notion of being taken not bothersome at all.
His brows rose to shocking heights, "your sister tells you stories about the fae?"
Elain nodded, her voice croaking, "She says she's waiting for them to come and I... keep having dreams about them... about them taking us away."
"That's impossible," he spoke, disdain in his voice.
"They wander in our house you know; I keep trying to look for them," Feyre said, jumping from her seat and lifting the skirts of the bed to peer below. "But every time I think I caught them they disappear."
His youngest seemed perturbed by that. As if her wandering days should have resulted in something to show. A hunter in the midst of wolves. He wanted to tell them to stop searching for those things—stop calling out for beings that were never meant to exist. Never meant to be known by these three little girls who didn't know what they were talking about. Childish fantasies and games.
"You are not to follow anything that you see floating about," he answered harshly, and maybe it was these words that had them straightening. A tone they'd never heard from him.
But Feyre… always Feyre… began to smile. Mischievous and unruly. She hummed, "What if they offer me cakes? Or sweets? Or... paints? I'm sure they've got all sorts of colors. Nesta says they like to play games. Do you think they'll let me join if I ask?"
He sighed, his nostrils flaring in impatience. He couldn't expect them to take the matter seriously, as young as they were. Fine. Then he'd have a stern talking to with Nesta about what she was allowed to say to her sisters…
But then he remembered she was… still only twelve and he supposed that meant having a talk with his wife about what Nesta was allowed to hear and he doubted he would win that battle.
He grimaced, trying to smile even as he felt his stomach twist uncomfortably. He swallowed down his apprehension. "There's no such thing as fae, fair folk, good folk, or any other folk outside this house or in this world."
Both Elain and Feyre looked to each other and back to him.
"Yes, there is," they voiced together, as if their wily willful ways had silenced, and the seriousness had drifted in the room, dancing through their words like the shadows and the moon's glow.
"No, there isn't," he enforced. "Your sister's stories are not real. In fact, if this happens one more time, I'm going to talk with Nesta about what stories she's allowed to tell you, since you all seem so intent on believing in make-believe."
Elain looked to Feyre, frowning. Feyre looked to him, anger painted between her brows. She squinted at him, a glare he'd seen on Nesta plenty, and he wondered how much their sister had taught them. And it was that precise look, an arrow straight through his heart, that made him wonder if now might be the best time for Nesta to receive a good and proper education. Away from grown-ups and their talk of grown-up things that Nesta was too young to listen to.
"I want you girls to get to bed now. No more talk of the fae or any other nonsense."
Feyre opened her mouth to argue, but he pointed to the door.
"Enough! Go to bed." He stood, his figure tall. "You don't want me to get your mother, do you?"
At the mention of his wife, Feyre rushed to the door, twisting the knob as if she might appear in the hall if she did not enter her room quick enough. He watched by the door as Feyre shut hers behind her like a little ghost floating through the walls.
He gripped the knob on Elain's door, ready to forget this conversation… to pretend it never happened at all.
"Papa?" He paused as he twisted to Elain who snuggled into her sheets, blinking her eyes sleepily. Even so, her voice wavered. "The fae aren't going to come… are they?"
His voice softened on its own accord as if he'd not been the least perturbed only moments ago. "No, little dove. Fae don't exist remember. They're only made of dreams."
"I'm too old for fairytales," she said, and he did not know if she meant that she agreed or that she knew his words were a lie. She yawned before he could ask, her eyes drifting close. "Good night, papa."
He echoed a soft reply before shutting her door. After it clicked shut, he leaned his head against it, running a hand down his face. When he began to breathe normally, he stood up straight. Looking to the other side of the hall, all the way to the end.
The door quietly stared at him. Mocked him, for he did not know what lied beyond it—hadn't been in there for years. It was the room his wife had chosen, and the farthest from them all. The farthest even from her sister's room that were right across from each other.
The door was curved at the top, made to look like a fantasy with the vines that were etched in its wood. It was brown and hearty with a large 'N' nailed at the center. The color of a robin's egg.
For his sweet baby bird… who'd been born with the strongest lungs and the eyes the color of a midday sky.
He didn't know what happened to the music box after his wife had taken out its song. It might have lied beyond that door. It might have been in some trash bin somewhere—in someone else's house, that person wondering what tune it might have sung if it had all of its parts.
And, he couldn't fathom sending Nesta away. His heart ached at the thought. His wife's little doll who smiled when she was told to, danced when she was asked. A good girl. An obedient girl.
He walked away, away from the sleeping two, with a little dancing figure playing in his mind, ceasing to spin because it could not find its music.
But Nesta was not a doll, and the Prince of Merchants could not say his wife had made princesses out of daughters. He found his daughters had always been a little odd. He wondered if that did not spell neglect. His presence so absent that his daughters once seeds had turned wild like weeds when they should have been flowers.
Perhaps, they all could do with a trip outside of these grounds. To the sea. Elain would like that... He could imagine Feyre chasing after seagulls. Nesta might have sulked on the shore, but he was sure he could convince her to dip her feet in the water. For curiosity's sake, he'd say.
He grinned as he saw it all. No more talks of fae or wildlings. Fair folk and good folk behind them. Yes, he supposed they'd all appreciate the time.
He began planning, the lists forming in his mind. He could hear the laughter, the chatter, as walked down the creaking stairs. Commotion in all its fine form. His office, thankfully, was on the opposite side of the parlor, remaining relatively untouched from his time away that his bookshelves had a thin layer of dust. He wondered if his wife even bothered to tell the maid to clean in here.
Perhaps that said enough.
He liked the room because of its large window at the center. From there he could watch his daughters play outside, running through the mud as a governess or two demanded that they act like civilized creatures. He never bothered to tell them that children should never be civilized.
But his daughters had rarely ever been outside... or at least not when he had a chance to see them.
The chair squealed as he sat, the window lighting the room in a soft glow, and he looked out into the wide abyss, framed and lined in mahogany. What lied outside made no difference, because it did not get past the forests. It surrounded their house, trees standing guard. Dutiful soldiers in the dark.
Fraxinus and Oak. Both of which made good arrows.
Nesta and Elain and Feyre would keep to their imagination for a while yet. He'd let them dream their strange dreams. Let them sleep without a care in the world. Tell their stories as if they were real and true. As fanciful and naive as they were.
For the world was not as caring as him.
He stood from his desk, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor.
No, the world was not as loving as him, and it would not make princesses out of odd little girls, just as it did not make heroes out of wolves...
It was that thought that had his gaze scanning the brush of trees, the shadows whispering between space, shifting in and out. He looked closer at the shadowy figures, so closely that his lips hit the glass and his mouth made a spot of fog.
He squinted harder even still. As Nesta had done looking to the windows... the clocks... the doors...
But there was nothing there but ash and for that he let out a breath.
This fic is a product of listening to creepy music box music for several hours. Also, I love writing the Archeron sisters as weird little girls. It gives me life.
But I'm not sure if I like this story yet... I've read it maybe too many times and I am quite in a writing slump, if y'all haven't noticed. I'm deeply saddened by it so I'm just going to posting random ass things that may or may not make sense. The next chapter of this (if I continue) might be another scene in their childhood or it might be the actual storyline, which is entirely nessian pretty much. I don't know. At this point, I'm just trying to cultivate my love of writing again.